


Look Forward; Look Back

by Heartbreakmosh (PompousPickle)



Category: Pro Wrestling NOAH
Genre: A lot of yearning tbh, Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past AXIZ, References to Head Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 05:54:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30050907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PompousPickle/pseuds/Heartbreakmosh
Summary: After they win the belts, the Aggression have a discussion in the trainer's room.
Relationships: Nakajima Katsuhiko/Kitamiya Masa
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	Look Forward; Look Back

“I didn’t say anything stupid, did I?” Masa’s head was pounding as they waited in the trainer’s room. Everything was thrumming around him to a steady beat, like a dance club but with no music, blurry and far away and deafening in its silence. 

Nakajima grabbed a towel and walked to the sink. “You don’t remember?” Even with his ears ringing, Kitamiya could hear the worry on the edge of Katsuhiko’s voice, water running over the cloth as he wrung his hands around it, time and time again. 

“Vaguely. You talked about having fun a lot. Fucking remember that,” he grunted in response. Nakajima didn’t respond, his hands stilling at the sink for a fraction of a moment.

“I’m  _ fine _ .” Masa then insisted for the third time since they made it through their backstage comments. The others never doted on him like this. And even Katsuhiko hadn’t really, in all of their preview matches. Not like this. There was something about them being alone together, in and out of the ring, that wiped the oily smile off of Katsuhiko’s face. Masa quickly called it nostalgia, refusing to dwell on it.

However, by the time Katsu turned around, the smile had returned. “You were great,” he hummed, moving forward and pushing the towel onto Masa’s forehead and running it delicately over the blood. So delicately that one would think Katsu was cleaning thinly spun glass. “You always speak so well. They loved us out there.” 

“Don’t care about them,” Masa grumbled, but Nakajima’s smile didn’t drop for even a second. “Just glad I didn’t sound like an idiot.” He winced as Katsuhiko finally brought the towel to the contact spot on the peak of his forehead, but Katsu was as careful as ever, refusing to push in or press. That was the trainer’s job, when they were finally done with Sakuraba and Sugiura. Masa grunted, irritable that they were taking so long. Irritable that Sugiura-gun was once again fucking around and wasting his time. 

Still, this wasn’t so bad, Katsuhiko gently running the wet cloth across his face with one hand, running fingers through his hair with the other. He gently coaxed Masa’s head upwards, to look at him. He ran the cloth down over his nose and cheeks, and Masa thought that it wouldn’t be so terrible to just surrender to the feeling, just this once. Just for a moment while the world was humming and spinning and no one could see him or judge him. 

And with that, his wince turned into a gentle flutter of his eyelids, his eyes drifting shut slowly as he nuzzled into Katsu’s ministrations. He sighed, rough and frustrated. But it felt so good to finally close his eyes. 

Nakajima stopped abruptly and pulled Masa’s head upright with a quick inhale of breath. “No. Keep your eyes on me.” 

Kitamiya grunted, unmoving with his eyes still shut as he tried to lean back where he sat. Nakajima didn’t relent, gently tapping his hand against Masa’s cheek, slapping him softly to get his eyes back open. “Look at me. Please...just look at me.” 

Kitamiya’s eyes peeled open at that, but he glanced away as soon as he caught Katsu’s expression in the bright fluorescent lights. It was far too much, far too blinding. So he looked towards the belts instead.  _ Their  _ belts, draped over a nearby chair, stacked on top of each other haphazardly. 

It was a little funny, Kitamiya decided. When Kenoh first had them reunite as a tag team, Kitamiya had written it off as entirely self-serving. Just a little nostalgic reunion for the produce show, to shut up the bastards who kept asking. But then the match happened and he began to think that Kenoh had another motive. He still suspected the bastard did. 

Kitamiya had spent so much of that match dancing around Katsuhiko, watching him warily, trying to pull apart the person he had become. Every single move had become a puzzle piece. Everything he remembered from the past became a question of what made it so different now. Nakajima felt less like a partner and more like an examination. As though he were testing them, testing each other. 

But the fight went on. And whether Kitamiya liked it or not, the pieces began to slide into place. Masa started to notice that he was still watching every one of Nakajima’s moves, but his heart had changed with every strike. And finally, in the final blows, he caught himself praying that Katsuhiko would look at him back. Praying in the same way Katsuhiko was now, thumbs rotating comforting circles on Masa’s arms, the other too exhausted to shove him away. 

Masa found himself submitting to the feeling once again, hissing as he willed his head over to look at Katsu once again. As though returning the favor from that night when their fists had met for the first time in 4 years, automatic and compulsory, private smiles hiding behind their teeth. 

However, when he finally met Katsu’s eyes, he wasn’t smiling. He would have thought he’d be relieved, but instead his partner was just staring at him, brows gently furrowed, curls loosened from exertion and falling just before his eyes. His lips were parted, breath escaping slow and shallow. 

And all at once Masa realized he had seen that expression before. He had seen it hundreds of times. When Kenoh refused to take his hand before their N1 match. When Shiozaki had him backed against the ropes. When the crowd stared at him with stony eyes, hands shaking against the cold quiet of the arena. When everything Nakajima secretly wanted became too much for him to simply smile through. When he was forced to admit, for one single heartbreaking moment, that he still cared so much. 

Masa slammed his eyes shut again, this time in raw, whittled down emotion. 

He still cared so much. 

“There has to be some fucking tylenol around here, right? Check my bag.” He opened his eyes one more time, praying that the moment had passed. 

From the way Nakajima broke into his wry smile, he could tell that it had, and Masa could help but feel both relieved and a little sad. “Of course. Anything for my dear partner.” Nakajima’s voice was dripping with easy charm as he unzipped Kitamiya’s bag and began to shuffle around. Masa stared at the lights and tried not to dig for sincerity in between Katsuhiko’s words. 

He felt the cool plastic of a water bottle against his head and leaned into it without thinking, chasing the feeling before turning over to Katsu, still smiling as he slid the bottle and two small pills into his hand. Masa took them and grunted. “Two? What kind of pathetic headache do you think I have?” He swallowed them both anyway. 

“I can’t have you thinking that’s enough. We still need to wait for the trainer.” Nakajima sunk back into his chair with a shrug, eyes carefully trained on the way Masa swallowed the water and the medicine. 

Masa almost laughed. “I know, I know. Just who do you think I am?” The guy really must have had his hands full with Shiozaki. “Sucks waiting though, so this helps.” He understood it. They both did, with the safety protocols they could only have so many people in a room at a time, let alone so many people floating around backstage. He took another swig of his water and stared at the door, as though willing it to open. “Speaking of, where the fuck is Kenoh?” 

Katsu shrugged and leaned back into his chair. “Not sure. Only one guest in the trainer’s room at a time. Would you prefer…” 

“No.” Masa was quick to cut in. “ _ Fuck  _ no. I already  _ have  _ a headache.” He could only imagine how angry Kenoh was right now. He had been avoiding checking his LINE messages for that very reason, imagining him pacing around just outside of the venue, phone in hand as the others listened to his rampage. Masa could afford these few minutes of respite here, waiting with Nakajima. Waiting with his  _ partner _ , he tested the word in his head again, his skull still vibrating with both pain and the thrill of victory. “I’ll call him after. Let the others sort out the Kashin aftermath for now.”

Nakajima let out the smallest breath of unmistakable relief. His eyes flickering so quickly it could have been an illusion, a glitch in the system. Kitamiya sighed. He used to find it so insufferable, Katsu’s doting nature. Back before they fell apart and even more so after, slipping through the cracks of his supercilious smile.

But now, even under the throbbing of his head, he found himself looking for it, chasing after it. Giving into it, assuring Nakajima that he was still needed. That Kongoh needed him. That  _ Masa  _ needed him. 

“You should challenge, after this.” Nakajima scooted his chair closer. “You were so cool out there. No one could deny you.” He reached for Masa’s head again, this time without the blood and the washcloth as an excuse between them. Masa was sure they shouldn’t be touching the wound, and he didn’t want to preen at Nakajima’s compliments, but he felt himself leaning into the touch again anyway. And worse than that, he felt a chuckle rise to his chest, bubbling out as he shook his head. 

“Sure. If it’s Kiyomiya. Fucking sick of fighting old men.” Masa smiled and let Nakajima run his thumb over the wound, and it was almost nice to feel the pain concentrated to one single spot. He sighed, as though it were somehow a relief. “But let’s take it one night at a time. We still need to celebrate these belts first, yeah?” 

He almost added in that Kenoh would want to get drunk and celebrate as well, and no doubt the others would want to come along. But a part of Masa wanted it to be just the two of them, at least for now. He’d ease Nakajima into it. He’d let him continue to find his place in the corner of Kongoh. After all, that’s what Kenoh had originally wanted, he realized. 

It just took Kitamiya by surprise to realize how badly he wanted it too. 

Nakajima’s eyes flickered again, and his mouth twitched with them, his smile faltering and then reforming again into something solid and real and full of hope. But before he could form that smile into words, they both heard a knock on the door. Without missing a single beat, Nakajima dropped his hands from Masa’s face and grabbed for the mask hanging around his chin. He snapped it over his face, smothering his mouth, the sincerity of his smile slowly fading from his eyes. Masa did the same, pulling his mask on and scooting himself back as the medical advisor entered. 

The man nodded once at Nakajima, who wordlessly slid to the side, grabbing his belt in the process. And in an awkward careful waltz, the trainer gave Nakajima room to escape, completely wordlessly. 

But before he left, Katsu turned his head one last time, eyes reflecting the light of his half of the tag team belts flung over his shoulder. His eyes were wide, and Masa could only guess the expression underneath the mask, looking back at him. Masa only nodded, eyes trained carefully on Katsu for one more moment, steadfast, looking forward. 

**Author's Note:**

> Masa I love you so much but please don't headbutt anyone ever again. Especially Keiji Mutoh. Thanks.


End file.
